


The Great Delusion

by Spinning Place (buttercups3)



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M, Season 5 Spoilers, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 20:35:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2402066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttercups3/pseuds/Spinning%20Place
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Gillingham attends a party at Downton Abbey the night before Russian refugees are set to arrive. Tolstoy, Rachmaninoff, and an outdoor romp make the evening memorable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Delusion

**Author's Note:**

> Title derived from Leo Tolstoy's _The Kreutzer Sonata_
> 
> [Hear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcdQvEJIs28) Rachmaninoff's Barcarolle Op. 10, No. 3 in G-Minor played by the great Vladimir Horowitz.

“Tell me, Lord Gillingham, are you a connoisseur of Russian literature? Tolstoy, perhaps?” Violet Crawley’s eyes twinkle with menace.

With the refugees arriving tomorrow, Russia has become the relentless topic of conversation around the fire tonight. Much to his ill fortune Tony has been abandoned by the rest of the Crawleys to the Dowager Countess for the moment, and according to Mary: _Granny knows, Tony. Be careful; she bites._ Yes, Violet is privy to his and Mary’s dalliance, but he cannot tell if she is testing his mettle or torturing him like a cat with a cornered mouse.

Tony sips his port and peers at the Crawley matriarch, who is baiting him with Tolstoy either on the subject of peasant anarchy or Christianity; he can’t tell which. Happily, Tom Branson is engaged elsewhere. “To some extent, yes, but not Tolstoy’s latter, excessively doctrinal years.”

“Indeed?”

Tony veers valiantly away from politics and religion, which may be part of the test itself. “Indeed. I do not wish to be pitied simply for being human.”

“You do not accept his claim that carnal love hinders the worthier pursuits in life--science, art, religion?”

Mary has managed to approach just as the words _carnal love_ part rather triumphantly sharp lips. Eyebrows in a line, Mary attempts to interrupt, “Now Granny, don’t torment To-”

But Tony is not about to be bullied, not when the conversation’s purpose has finally been revealed. “Certainly not. Love is beauty.”

“I see. A romantic through and through.” Violet’s lips curl into a smile that is, perhaps, intended as deathblow.

“My romanticism has been somewhat tempered by experience over the years, but it remains mainly intact.”

Violet curtly tips her head, as if it’s no consequence to her if he wants to make himself silly. Indeed, her simper recalls to mind an incident from when he was a boy--perhaps nine--picnicking at Downton, when his elder brothers discovered a dead, little grass snake. Draping its limp body over a stick, Joseph and Henry thrust the corpse at the Crawley girls to hear them squeal, though Mary simply rolled her eyes and demanded they resume their game of chase. Despite a sensitive nature that probably better allied Tony with the girls--well, Edith and Sybil--than with his brothers, he forced a haughty laugh, but when no one was looking gingerly pocketed the snake. Later rejoining the adults, Tony saw that his mother had gone in (she was always an invalid), leaving only Violet and Cora to hear his earnest, mumbled concern as he held out the lifeless form. Cora was kind and, patting him on the arm, suggested he bury it, but Violet fixed him with the very same look she offers now.

Mary manages to scatter these memories by perching beside Tony on the couch. “The Russians haven’t yet arrived, but they’re already making for exceptionally tiresome conversation,” she scolds her grandmother with a sip of ruby liquid.

Tony and Violet smile politely at one another. He’s still not entirely certain if Violet is determined that he be run out of the family for seducing Mary, or if she’s offering some coded invitation to redeem himself. Perhaps he’s had too much wine tonight to think straight.

Mary turns to Tony, her lips blood red from drink in striking contrast to the milk of her skin. His eyes wander down to the dip in her neck, where black beads lazily dangle. Surely the Dowager Countess has noticed and disapproved, but there’s no retracting where his eyes have been.

“Tony, what do you say we put Russian culture to better use? You’ve been promising to play piano for me for quite some time, and I believe you said Rachmaninoff is your favorite?”

Under any other circumstances Tony would decline, but he’s rather desperate to spend time alone with Mary and escape the scrutiny of her grandmother. Thus with a small nod, they abscond to where the piano awaits.

Sweeping his tails from beneath him, Tony adjusts the bench and squints at the elegant figure leaning on the polished, black wood. “What would you like to hear, darling?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. Something meaningful to you, I suppose.”

“Something _romantic_?”

“Oh, Granny was only teasing you.”

“Punishing me?”

“Perhaps.”

“Well. This piece makes me think of you… and us.”

Technically challenging as Rachmaninoff’s Barcarolle in G-Minor is, Tony’s not sure why he’s impulsively settled on it. Indeed as his fingers skirt the keys, he makes plenty of errors and tries not to visibly cringe and curse. He despises playing for others, feels more naked at the keyboard than in any other state. But the music appears to cast an odd spell over his companion, whose hand drops from the piano to her side. She ghosts over to sit beside him. Though his arms are hard at work, her cheek sinks to his shoulder, transfixed by his hands.

When Tony blunders to the final chord, which always rings so maddeningly inconclusive to his ears, he shifts his nose to her hair and can’t help but smile at the familiar lavender and honey. He kisses her sculpted curls and half-shrugs.

“Sorry. It wasn’t very good. It’s a difficult piece, and I’m rather out of practice.”

“No, it was… heavenly. Not at all what I was expecting.”

“Oh? And what were you expecting?”

“Something--I don’t know--sentimental?”

Tony chuckles. “Is that what you think of me?”

She pulls away from his shoulder to study him with sincere, bottomless eyes. “You play with such feeling. What is it about the piece that reminds you of me?”

“I’m not certain I can put it to words. It’s… there’s a sort of muted chaos to it, and that was my life before you re-entered it. I was very lost and… oh dear. It sounds quite foolish.”

“No,” Mary’s forehead crinkles fetchingly, as she places her hand on top of his where it now rests on his thigh. “Go on.”

Tony squeezes her cool, elegant fingers. “There is passion and climax... and moments of uncertainty. I don’t know, Mary. Don’t make me continue.” He inclines his head lightly against hers with an inhibited laugh.

“Passion and climax?” Her breath is warm and alcoholic on his lips, while her fingers slip casually down to brush the seam of his trousers.

“Mary,” Tony warns, already stirring.

With a puckish incline of her head, Mary replies, “I’ll let them know we’re going out for a walk. The evening’s quite fine.”

Impressed with her resourcefulness, Tony blurts, “I’ll fetch our coats!”

“We can only hope Granny’s gone home.”

* * *

Tony fears the dew is beginning to soak through both overcoats spread beneath him, as Mary grinds into his lap, his sex plunged up the center of her warm, sweet body, his back against the trunk of an old oak. Neither of them have disrobed more than is minimally necessary. His trousers and undershorts are scarcely pushed down to his knees, while Mary, with Tony’s dinner jacket tossed haphazardly over her shoulders, holds her skirt bunched about her hips, the beaded fringe tickling his exposed pelvis. He keeps attempting to feel her breast through the ornate fabric of her dress, but it’s no good; instead he presses down on her shoulders to dig deeper inside her, her inner muscles deliciously compressing his straining erection.

It’s nippy out but sweat trickles down his temple from the exertion of holding her in place and thrusting. An owl _hoos_ so incessantly above him, he nearly grumbles at it for attracting attention to their tree, though it’s highly unlikely they’ll be spotted all the way out here.

They’re not using protection, and it’s just a reminder that she hasn’t decided on him yet when she admonishes breathlessly in his ear, “Don’t finish inside me!”

In an attempt at a nod, Tony thuds his head back against the tree with a yelp of pain, bark impaling his scalp at a thousand needle points. She sympathetically threads her fingers into his hair to soothe the spot, at the same time bouncing harder as she nears her peak. Reaching under her skirt he slides his thumb against the soft, wetness beneath her curls to provide her something against which to grind.

Bracing herself on his arms, her gasp-moan- _yes_ of an orgasm never fails to summon in him an almost painfully constricting wave of affection, during which he becomes convinced he cannot live without her. The smooth, hot muscles of her body work him to his own edge. He feels bad rushing her, but he has to urgently tap her shoulder to release him, worried he won’t make it.

Luckily, she senses his desperation and hastens aside just as he turns, fingers locked around his foreskin, to wring himself into the grass. It takes forever for him to stop coming, and he’s almost ashamed at how lonely he must appear spilling himself with wanton moans while she looks on.

After he wipes his hand on the damp earth and slumps back down against the tree, she snuggles against his side, tucking her head under his chin and receiving his ready kiss to her hair. She surprises him then by retrieving her undergarment to mop up his nakedness, glistening in the moonlight. When she wads up her drawers and sets them aside, she lightly cups his tender flesh, letting him wane in the warmth of her fingers. He watches all of this with his mouth slightly agape, his throat alarmingly tight.

At last she breaks the strange enchantment they’ve conjured with a whispered, “You’re going to ask again soon, aren’t you?”

Unable to swallow the painful lump in his throat, Tony chokes out, “I must. Every time we do this, we risk your reputation.”

“And yours.”

“I don’t care about mine.”

“Tony-”

He tilts up her chin to affirm, “I _don’t_. I only care about being with you. You’re everything.”

“Oh-” she closes her eyes, shaking her head lightly, and he gently kisses her eyelashes.

“I’ll give you time, Mary. I’ll give _me_ time, since I currently couldn’t bear to hear no.”

Nuzzling back down against his neck, she drifts, her breathing even and tranquil. Through the ancient canopy of the oak, Tony gazes up at the stars, points of white light punched through a canvas of black. Transported back to his boyhood once again, he makes a frivolous pact with himself that if he can only count the visible stars, his wish will come true.

_One, two_ … Mary’s fallen asleep, the faint wet of her open mouth on his neck, first warm then cold.


End file.
